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He washed his hands with great care, rubbing on the soap and
scrubbing with the stiff brush so that his skin hurt. Then he continued up
along his arms, brushing so vigorously that his skin stung and layers were
gradually scraped off. He started to bleed. By that time he no longer felt
any pain. The water didn't flow properly from the faucet, nor did it ever
get truly hot. He didn't care; in some way that was all part of the whole
process. He bled into the sink, and he liked seeing the blood splash up on
the stainless steel sides. Then he scrubbed his chest, his stomach, his legs,
and his arms in the same rough manner.

He came out here every time. This was his starting point, the center of his circle, the hub in his life. Here the present shook hands with the future, stood eye to eye with the past. Everything became knotted together into one entity. It was only in this house that he could feel peace.

The turning point had occurred here, and he knew exactly when it had happened. He now understood that he had been chosen, but also that this had not occurred by mere chance.

He had arranged it himself by finally taking command of his own life. He would never have to wonder what it was that had prompted his actions from the very beginning. Perhaps it was merely a feeling of satiety, that now it was enough. From being a victim, he had now gone on the attack. Once and for all.

There was something painful yet at the same time liberating about getting older. Life's insights caught up with you, and there was no avoiding them. They nudged the back of your knees, breathed down your neck until you let them emerge, and then it was like a dam bursting. All the torments that he had hidden under his skin came to the surface and broke through the wall of defenses that he had so carefully constructed since the very first violations in his childhood. To live was to suffer, but he had been punished enough. So one day when he was wandering through the woods alone, he confronted them eye to eye. They spoke through pine and spruce, juniper and blueberry branches. He could hear their whispering voices in the crowns of the trees, in the marshy ground, and in the overcast sky. When he trudged along the shore he heard their cries from far off in the foamy white wave tops and in the sandy dunes.

He screamed and drowned out the roar of the waves.

"I hear you, I hear you. I'm here, I'm yours! I'm your eternal servant, I offer my blood, my life!"

They answered him quickly and firmly. It was not his blood they were interested in.

The call came into police headquarters at 9:15 p.m. Speaking
in a distressed and disjointed manner, Gunnar Ambjörnsson told the officer
on duty about the horse's head in his shed. The officer then contacted Anders
Knutas, who in turned called Jacobsson. Since she lived within walking distance
of Norra Murgatan, they agreed to meet there.

When Knutas arrived, she was already waiting outside the fence. They found Ambjörnsson, with whom Knutas was slightly acquainted, wrapped in a blanket and sitting on a chair in the yard. He was speaking agitatedly with a female police officer. When he caught sight of Knutas, he stood up.

"Anders, this is insane. Come see for yourselves."

He led the way to the shed, which stood in a corner of the property.

Jacobsson took out a handkerchief in preparation for what they were about to see and pressed it to her mouth.

Her stomach still turned over when she saw what Ambjörnsson had found an hour earlier. The swollen and bloody head of a horse was affixed to a sturdy wooden pole that was leaning against the door. The pole had been shoved up into the head through the neck. The mouth hung open, and the eyes gave both officers a glassy stare. Several seconds passed before anyone said a word.

"Do you see what I see?" said Knutas in a toneless voice.

Jacobsson slowly nodded from behind her handkerchief. She could hardly bear to look.

"What is it?" Ambjörnsson seemed terrified.

Both the detectives gave him a solemn look.

"Do you know about the horse that was found decapitated recently?"

Ambjörnsson nodded without speaking.

"Well, this head," said Knutas, "doesn't belong to the same horse."

When Knutas closed the door to his house and set off for work, it was only six thirty in the morning on the day after the discovery in Ambjörnsson's shed. He had lain awake most of the night, and by five he gave up all attempts to sleep. As soon as he got outside, he perked up. The morning air was fresh and clear, and the city was quiet and still.

It was 11:00 p.m. by the time they left the house in Klinten the night before. Ambjörnsson had reluctantly agreed to be taken to the hospital to be examined. He'd had a weak heart for many years and had to take medicine for it. Afterward he was given a police escort over to his girlfriend's place in Stånga. The police refused to allow him to spend the night alone in his house. The horse's head on the pole couldn't be regarded as anything less than a threat.

The conference room had a charged atmosphere when the investigative team took their places. A certain anticipation could be felt in the air. What had happened was definitely out of the ordinary.

"Good morning," Knutas greeted his colleagues. He then reported on the horrifying scene they had found at the home of the municipal politician Gunnar Ambjörnsson the night before.

When Knutas told them that the horse's head that had been stuck on a pole did not belong to the decapitated horse in Petesviken, everyone was utterly silent.

"What was that you just said?" The words were hesitantly spoken by Martin Kihlgård.

"It's not the same head. The horse's head in Ambjörnsson's shed belonged to a standardbred trotter; the horse in Petesviken was a Gotland pony."

"So that means that somewhere on Gotland there's another decapitated horse."

"Exactly," said Knutas. "We interviewed Ambjörnsson last night, and he says he has no idea what this is all about. He hasn't had any quarrel with anyone, as far as he knows. But I think we still have to assume that this is a threat. What do you think?"

"Politicians are always being threatened in one way or another," said Wittberg with a snort. "It's obvious that Ambjörnsson has reason to be frightened. Methods like this are straight out of the Mafia. It makes me think of drug deals."

"Do you really think the noble Ambjörnsson would be fooling around with drugs? That's going a little too far." Jacobsson looked at her colleague in disbelief.

"I agree." Norrby shook his head. "The Italian Mafia in Visby? You've been watching too many action films, Thomas. This is real life—and on Gotland."

"The crime is a sophisticated one. That much we can agree on," interjected Sohlman. "Allow me to go over the technical details. The perpetrator shoved the pole up through the horse's neck, under the mandible, and in that way he could affix the head without using rope or anything like that. The pole was placed so that it would fall forward into Ambjörnsson's arms when he opened the shed door. The man suffers from a weak heart; it's incredible that he didn't have a heart attack. The head remained attached, even when the pole fell to the ground, which indicates that the perp knew what he was doing. We called in Åke Tornsjö, the veterinarian, who examined the head last night. According to him, the horse was probably killed in the same way as the one we found decapitated in Petesviken, but he won't be sure until he examines the rest of the body. Unfortunately, we have no idea where to find it. At any rate, this head had been frozen and then thawed before it was fastened to the pole. We know this because it's swollen up, and the flesh is looser than it would normally be. It's impossible to say how long the perp may have preserved the head in a freezer—in principle it could have been for any amount of time. We've found a good deal of evidence on Ambjörnsson's property: footprints, a cigarette butt that doesn't belong to him, and a button that he doesn't recognize. The grass has been trampled in several places, which indicates that the perp first had a look around, presumably to find a suitable place to position the horse's head. By the way, the head has been taken to the veterinarian's office for closer examination."

"How did the perp get into the yard? Don't most people in Klinten keep their places locked up?" asked Wittberg.

"He picked the lock in the gate facing the street. It was easily done. Ambjörnsson didn't even notice any damage to it when he opened the gate." Sohlman pushed his chair back from the table. "If there are no more questions, I'd like to get back there."

"Go ahead," said Knutas.

With a nod to his colleagues, Sohlman hurried out the door.

"The fact that the head belongs to a different horse and not to the one we found out in Petesviken is perplexing, to say the least. We haven't received any reports of a decapitated horse or one that's missing," Knutas went on. "As for Ambjörnsson, he was born in 1942, he's not married, and he doesn't have any children. But he does have a big family, a hell of a lot of siblings and nieces and nephews scattered all over the island. His parents passed away a few years ago. He's not a controversial figure and has never been mixed up in any major political trouble, as far as I can recall, but, of course, that's something we need to look into. At the moment he's staying with his girlfriend in Stånga. The thing is that he was actually planning a trip abroad, which couldn't come at a better time, if we're supposed to interpret the horse's head as some sort of threat. The day after tomorrow, on Sunday, he's going to Morocco for three weeks."

"With his girlfriend?" asked Kihlgård.

"No, he's traveling alone. Apparently that's what he usually does."

"What does Gunnar Ambjörnsson have in common with Martina Flochten? That's the first question that we need to answer," said Jacobsson. "First Martina was killed, and the murder clearly has ritualistic elements. Then, barely a week later, a horse's head is found stuck on a pole at Gunnar Ambjörnsson's house. That seems extremely odd."

"It would be very strange if there was no connection between these two events," Wittberg agreed. "But the nastiest part about the whole thing is that the head doesn't belong to the horse in Petesviken. Someone is going around decapitating horses and deep-freezing the heads. Someone who might also be a ritual murderer." He nodded toward the window. "Who is he going to strike next?"

Silence settled over the room. The summer greenery outside the window didn't seem as idyllic as it had before.

"All right," said Knutas, as if to break the uncomfortable mood. "We have a statement from the teacher Aron Bjarke that Staffan Mellgren was romantically interested in Martina. The teacher claims that Mellgren is a real womanizer and that he's constantly getting involved with various young students, even though he's a married man. He even went so far as to describe Mellgren as a sex addict."

"It's just odd that no one else mentioned any infidelities," said Wittberg.

"Yes, especially since they seem to have been so frequent. Is there anyone else who might confirm this information?" asked Kihlgård.

"Not so far. Although you never know. Maybe the other teachers want to protect him. It's a sensitive situation right now, with the murder and all."

"What about the students in the course?"

"Several of them have said that they suspected Martina was secretly meeting someone, but none of them can say who it might be. We haven't talked to the rest of the students at the college. Everyone attending classes right now is a summer student, and they wouldn't know Mellgren."

"What does Mellgren say?"

"He flatly denies it, of course."

"And his wife?"

"The same thing. According to her, they have no marital problems."

Knutas gave his colleagues a solemn look. "Whatever you do, don't let anything get out about the incident at Ambjörnsson's place," he said emphatically. "The day after tomorrow he's going abroad, which will hopefully give us an opportunity to work in peace and quiet. We also took great pains to be discreet when we were out there yesterday. We've got to keep that up. From now on, all questions regarding the investigation should be referred to either Lars or myself."

After the meeting Knutas went to his office and closed the door. He took out his pipe and began filling it. He needed to be alone to collect his thoughts. The calm that had reigned at the beginning of the summer had now been replaced with a chaos of sensational events, and at the moment he couldn't imagine how everything fit together. The mere fact that somewhere on Gotland there was another decapitated horse was distressing. Why hadn't anyone reported it?

He felt a strong need to light his pipe this time. He went to stand at the window, opened it wide, and struck a match, even though smoking was prohibited indoors. The only exception was in the interview rooms.

Knutas thought about Ambjörnsson: a friendly and unobtrusive politician who lived a quiet life and kept to himself. When it came right down to it, what did he really know about the man? He'd been a politician in the area for thirty years. Knutas had no clue what his private life was like.

Was the threat work-related or personal? They needed to find out quickly what political business Ambjörnsson had on his desk. Maybe that's where the answer would be found.

Knutas puffed on his pipe and slowly let the smoke seep out the corner of his mouth. From somewhere an idea gradually emerged, and all of a sudden it was crystal clear. There
was
a connection between Martina Flochten and Gunnar Ambjörnsson. It was the prestigious hotel project being planned right outside Visby. Martina's father, Patrick Flochten, was one of the architects and financiers of the biggest and most exclusive hotel complex ever to be built on Gotland. The very hotel complex that the building commission had approved just before summer started. Gunnar Ambjörnsson was chairman of the commission. Of course, the city councillors would have to reach a decision, and then the matter would be taken up by the county board, but the fact that the building commission had given the green light was the first step in implementing the plans.

Knutas searched his memory. There had been some protests against the project, although he'd gotten the impression that most Gotland residents took a positive view of it. He thought there was a political consensus in favor of the hotel. Which groups might be opposed? Undoubtedly neighbors who lived at Högklint, conservationists, and ethnogeographers—but surely none of them would be prepared to commit murder over it. Knutas didn't know if there was anything of archaeological interest at the site. All the groups that had any involvement in the project would have to be checked. Maybe there were political opponents that he didn't know about. He was going to see to it that the matter was investigated at once.